Recent Events in Germany

AMONG the foreign interests of the German people in 1904 the war in the Far East naturally occupied the foremost place. The unusual developments in the relations of the country with Russia, and the extraordinary steps taken by the Government to strengthen these, kept Russia continually in the foreground of public attention. In respect to the war two distinct currents of sympathy early manifested themselves. While the people at large have taken sides with growing enthusiasm for Japan, the Government, its closest political supporters, and to a less extent the financial and commercial classes, give their sympathies to Russia. The Government, however, has maintained a fair degree of neutrality in outward acts, notwithstanding its assiduous wooing of Russia’s favor in matters having little direct connection with the war.

The Kaiser, indeed, has taken pains to show how he feels. Now it was an autograph letter sent to the Czar through a special commissioner, now a telegram declaring “Russia’s sorrow to be Germany’s sorrow,” now a deputation of high officials sent across the frontier to convey his greetings to the Czar, now the distribution of money to a Russian frontier guard drawn up to salute him on one of his deer-stalking excursions, — such are the forms that the Kaiser chose for the frank expression of his sympathies. His attitude is doubtless partly dictated by family relationship, partly by personal pity for a friend in a distressing situation, partly by the traditional policy of protecting Germany on her western frontier through a strongly cemented friendship with Russia; but it is certainly affected also by his feelings toward Japan. It was the Kaiser who brought into vogue in Germany the expression, “the Yellow Peril.” Nobody here is so thoroughly convinced as he that the rise of the Japanese race to the rank of a great power must ultimately give to it the mastery of the Far East. Moreover, the line of cleavage between Christian and heathen nations marks, in the Kaiser’s mind, a difference that affects the political aspects of the present struggle in Manchuria.

The precarious character of Germany’s foothold in China certainly has some part in determining the attitude of her rulers at this moment. German statesmen, from the Kaiser down, know that if the Japanese win a conspicuous success, and then take hold of China and modernize it in an economic and military sense, Kiao-Chau must inevitably be lost to Germany. Already Germans are troubled by the Japanese commercial invasion of the colony and its hinterland. It is Japanese merchants. not German ones, that are settling along the line of the new German railway extending from Tsingtau into the interior, and are winning the trade of the country with their cheap manufactures, — a result facilitated by the fact that the Chinese like their racial kinsmen better than they like the Germans.

Russia, on her part, has done little to make Germany feel comfortable in her Russophile policy; indeed, it has seldom occurred that the friendliness of one country seemed to be so ill requited by the other. It is not that Russia deliberately designed to snub Germany; but her bungling officers and officials unwittingly created the appearance of reckless contempt for Germany’s rights on sea and land. The mails were carried off one German steamer, and another was captured by an auxiliary cruiser in the Red Sea; another German vessel sailing under a Japanese charter, and carrying a cargo not recognized as contraband by international law, was sunk by the Vladivostock squadron; and a German fishing schooner, the Sonntag, was fired upon by the Baltic fleet when that curious Armada was going forth, like Don Quixote, to seek adventures.

The last named incident, occurring just off the German coast, afforded a luminous view of German policy toward Russia. The Government apparently did not at first intend to make representations of any kind at St. Petersburg; such action, the word was given out at the Foreign Office, would depend upon whether the owner of the vessel asked the Ministry’s aid in getting redress. Meanwhile, the press furnished a remarkable illustration of how German editors sometimes take their cue from the Government in matters of foreign policy. At the moment when the newspapers were printing columns about the Anglo-Russian difficulty growing out of the Dogger Bank affair, they quietly brushed aside the Sonntag case as of no importance whatever; only the Socialist press struck a sharp note of protest. In the Reichstag, Count von Bülow showed how small a matter the whole thing was: “Nobody was wounded on board the Sonntag. . . . Russia at once met our just demands; ” and the owner of the schooner got his seven hundred and fifty dollars for torn nets and a damaged hawser.

In another direction, however, the relations with Russia caused profound discontent and gave occasion for repeated attacks upon the Ministry. For the purpose of coöperating with the St. Petersburg authorities in preventing Russian anarchists from establishing themselves at the Prussian universities, and continuing their propaganda at home from those centres, the Government allowed Russian detectives to enter Germany and keep a sharp surveillance upon the Czar’s subjects. Naturally, where Russian officials could determine who was an anarchist, and could designate the subjects for expulsion, things happened that caused sharp controversy; for everybody knows that in Russia any opponent of the Government is likely to be classified as an anarchist. When, moreover, a minister admitted in the Reichstag that obnoxious Russians were transported across the Russian frontier, a still more serious aspect was given to the matter, and the public mind experienced a disagreeable shock; for this was equivalent to transforming the right of expulsion into that of extradition, even where no crime was charged. Also the Government’s practice of returning to the Russian authorities military fugitives trying to evade service in Manchuria, except such as were provided with tickets to America by one of the German steamship lines, caused loud protest; and the practice had to be abolished under the pressure of public opinion.

The Government’s defense of its policy of expulsion was not such as to satisfy people not committed to its support. A Prussian minister argued in the Reichstag in behalf of exceptional treatment of fugitive Russian liberals,upon the ground that the reforms they were seeking in Russia would have, if carried into effect, a reflex democratic influence in Germany. The Government’s critics were also amazed to hear the Chancellor read from the unpublished records of the Government to prove that Bismarck had gone still farther than he, and had expelled Russians merely as a personal favor to the Czar.

The trial at Königsberg in July of seven Socialists for lèse majesté and high treason against the Czar was one of the most sensational events of the year, and was a curious piece of bungling for a country governed with so much system and efficiency as Germany. The accused persons had been arrested in the autumn of 1903 for smuggling literature of anarchistic tendencies into Russia. During the trial, however, it was shown that the pamphlets did not contain the incriminating sentence which the Russian Consul of the city had reported to the court in his “translation.” A still graver matter was the discovery that the translation of Russian law paragraphs, which this official had supplied to the court to prove that Russia guarantees reciprocity of treatment incases of lèse majesté, omitted some essential matter, so that the court was misled. An authentic translation cleared up this error; and an appeal to the Foreign Office brought the answer that no treaty guaranteeing reciprocity existed. Thus, after the trial had proceeded at great length and had attracted the attention of the country to an uncommon degree, the very basis on which it rested was destroyed at one blow. The accused got only light sentences for secret association contrary to German law.

The Government had to meet repeated assaults in the Reichstag and Diet in connection with this Königsberg affair. All political parties, except, the Conservatives, joined in these attacks; and the Socialists in particular made much political capital out of the matter. The Prussian Minister of Justice frankly confessed that serious mistakes had been made, and the Government press admitted that the trial had damaged the reputation of Prussian courts, and had compromised more than it had helped Russia. The impression left upon the country was that the Government had gone too far in its zeal to win Russia’s good will, and had suffered a loss of dignity.

The state of feeling in England toward Germany has remained such as to give grave concern to German statesmen and publicists. The behavior of the German press toward England has visibly improved within the past two years; nevertheless, the English windows that it smashed during the Boer War have never been repaired. Indeed, the attitude of several leading English newspapers and magazines creates the impression in Germany that they are deliberately trying to transform a popular antipathy into an inextinguishable hatred, which may have grave practical results. Their suspicion of Germany took some queer forms of expression last year. They found it easy to believe that Germany was plotting against British interests in Thibet; and when several damaged Russian vessels, fleeing before the victorious Togo, took refuge in Tsingtau, they saw fresh proof of their theory that a secret treaty exists between Germany and Russia. The fact that Japan declared herself satisfied when Germany ordered the vessels to be disarmed and detained till the close of the war, made little difference to these London political critics; they were more Japanese than Japan. The English Government went even farther at the time of the Dogger Bank incident. Downing Street actually believed that Germany had instigated the gallant attack of the Baltic squadron upon the Hull fishermen! Could anything illustrate more strikingly how an international hatred “doth work like madness in the brain”?

This frenzied state of the English mind toward Germany is all the more noteworthy when it is considered that France has already succeeded in completely mending the windows which its press had broken during the South African War. The German press certainly behaved no worse than the French at that time; yet Count von Bülow still finds it necessary to protest in the Reichstag, and in the English press itself, that he entertains none of the sinister designs against England attributed to him. The conclusion of the Anglo-French agreement last spring awakened curious sensations here. The feeling that Germany had been ignored in a matter that closely affected her interests was widely expressed; and even the saner organs of public opinion thought it was a most inopportune occasion for Count von Bülow to “lay his flute on the table and withdraw from the concert,” as he once said. The assumption that he made no music merely because the concert was not to his liking was rejected by wiser people than the Pan-Germans. The latter, of course, were ready with a quixotic proposition: Germany should immediately seize a part of Morocco as a compensation ! What has become, they asked, of the Kaiser’s utterance that no important decision could be taken anywhere in the world without Germany’s assent ?

The attitude of the German Government and people toward the United States, it is pleasant to note by way of contrast, has continued to grow more friendly. The Kaiser’s cordial good will for us has found frequent expression, and our President’s overtures for the negotiation of an arbitration treaty with Germany led to a speedy result. Germany also readily accepted the President’s tentative proposal of a second peace congress. It is pleasant to record here that the Berlin Government is more favorably disposed toward a second congress than it was toward the first; its skepticism toward a permanent arbitration court has been overcome by the practical efficacy of the Hague Tribunal, and it is convinced that the latter is capable of further development in the service of the world’s peace.

The President, moreover, is himself one of the chief influences in Germany making for a better appreciation of our country. Many stalwart patriots, indeed, saw an intentional affront to the Empire in the unfortunate delay in setting up the statue of Frederick the Great; but even these were appeased by Mr. Roosevelt’s tactful speech at the unveiling, which seemed to atone for a multitude of American sins. His message, too, while many moralists thought that his ethical flights were too heavily weighted with cannon, pleased the German commercial classes at its most radical point, — its frank declaration of police authority over delinquent debtor - states in South America. The President has undoubtedly touched a most sympathetic chord among all classes here, notwithstanding what they regard as his excessive imperialism. The interest in him as a man is growing, — the German public clearly wants to know better this strong American who dares to have high ideals in the midst of what it traditionally regards as our sordid and corrupt politics. Various newspapers have been running translations of his books as serials; and a complete edition of his works has been announced by a publishing house.

The visits of Germans to our shores last year assumed far larger proportions than ever before. Many business and professional men who had long wanted to see what is called here “the great republic,” availed themselves of the St. Louis exhibition to gratify their wishes. The columns of the newspapers have been filled with the impressions of these travelers. It is a significant fact — one that is not very flattering to our national pride — that few of these writers point their countrymen to our experience in government, still fewer to our conduct of general politics, and none at all to our management of municipal affairs, as examples for imitation at home. What interested our visitors chiefly was material things, — our methods of producing and distributing goods, and social and labor questions as affecting these. And on this plane, what was the impression made ? A favorable one, indeed, but far from the overwhelming impression that our vast economic self-esteem would have expected. What expert technical writers saw at St. Louis and in their travels about the country tended rather to diminish their awe for the “American Danger” than to enhance it. One of the foremost of these gave the following summary of his impressions: “Our well-known pessimists, who shudder whenever a ton of American iron is landed at Ruhrort, should be compelled to visit St. Louis. Let them here study the actual state of technical development, especially let them inform themselves as to the effects of the protective tariff and the trusts upon technical progress; let them also study the ever increasing friction between capital and labor, — then, if they are acquainted with conditions at home, they must relegate the ostensible ‘ American Danger ’ to the realm of fable.”

It is probable that new commercial treaties with various continental countries will have been ratified by the Reichstag before this article appears in print. These arrangements will take effect January 1, 1906, and will continue in force twelve years. In view of the near approach of the time when Germany’s commercial relations shall be placed upon a new tariff basis, no little concern is felt as to the future of the country’s trade with us. The importance of removing all uncertainty about the matter is fully realized; and it has been asserted repeatedly in the press and in the Reichstag that it is more important for Germany to get a satisfactory commercial treaty with the United States than with her immediate neighbors. It may be easily understood, therefore, that there is much amazement here that our Government seems wholly to ignore the seriousness, from the American standpoint, of the situation that will exist after January 1, 1906. I outlined that situation in this magazine one year ago; and all that was said then has equal force to-day. Our commercial people who are interested in the export trade with Germany should lose no time in convincing Congress that the “stand-pat” policy is an extremely unwise one, so far as Germany is concerned. If that policy is to continue, I can see no other result than that all our exports to Germany shall be placed under the German general tariff duties, while those of our competitors will come in at greatly reduced treaty rates.

The uprising of the Hereros, and later of the Witboi Hottentots, in German Southwest Africa has given the country a most unwelcome reminder of the dangers and uncertainties of colonial possessions. This little negro war has proved to be very troublesome to the Government, and equally so to the Imperial finances, which are otherwise in an unsatisfactory state. Worse than the heavy cost in money has been the sacrifice of human life, the German troops having lost heavily from malarial diseases. Some features of the struggle are of interest to us, in view of our position in the Philippines and our perennial negro question at home. It is highly interesting to note that the dwellers in Southwest Africa — although the Germans have little of social repugnance to the negro as we know it — have adopted a view of that race hardly less favorable than prevails in the most anti-negro sections of the South. The settlers who wrote letters to the newspapers at home, and the deputation of farmers who came to Berlin to seek financial aid from the Government, were of one mind as to the régime of ex-Governor Leutwein; it was too mild for negroes, who must be made to feel the stern hand of authority. Some of his critics complain that he permitted the blacks to appeal to police and courts in protecting their rights against the whites; and they are now demanding that the lands of the natives be confiscated, even those of the tribes remaining friendly to Germany, and that they be reduced to a state of quasi-slavery till they learn to work.

Various causes for the uprising have been put forward. The local authorities laid it largely to the extortion of wandering traders who went about the country enticing the natives to buy goods on credit, and seizing their cattle later and selling them to secure payment. The Imperial Government lays little stress upon this cause, and says that the “uprising would have occurred if there had never been a white trader in Hereroland.” The official view is that “the Hereros, being a freedom-loving, conquering, infinitely proud people, felt the extension of German power and the diminution of their own to be growing more and more intolerable; also ” — what was really the decisive factor — “ they had gotten the impression that they were stronger than the Germans.”

The Imperial Chancellor has now announced that it will be the policy of the Government to make such uprisings forever impossible again. To this end the natives are to be disarmed and their captaincies abolished; the colony will be placed under acivil governor, and military rule will be discontinued; but sufficient troops will be kept there permanently to quell any future uprising in its incipiency. Local self-government, so far as consistent with the Imperial authority, will also be introduced in the colonies. The passage of bills by the Reichstag for railways in Togo and German East Africa, for the encouragement of cotton-growing, has a direct economic interest for us Americans. Of course it is quite problematical what will come of this experiment, — just as everything about Germany’s colonies is more or less problematical. The Governor of East Africa was saying the other day that it was still quite uncertain whether that colony would prove to be adapted for white settlement. But it is the fatality of these colonial experiments that the Empire cannot recede from the course once chosen, — the honor of the country, it is thought, would forbid that; and so Germany goes on spending life and treasure many times more valuable, to all appearances, than all her African possessions will ever be worth.

Among the home interests of the country nothing loomed up so large last year as the subject of industrial combinations. The process of consolidating industries and banks into powerful organizations again made gigantic strides; and the public mind, dazed and disquieted, is wondering what will be its final outcome. All the largest steel manufacturers united in an association that shall have complete control of the steel and iron products of the country; and it is already effecting agreements with manufacturers of other countries for parceling out the world’s markets. At the same time the Coal Syndicate was reorganized to include all the independent producers of the West; and, in connection with it, a great shipping and selling company was formed for the purpose of controlling the retail trade and eliminating recalcitrant dealers. These steel and coal combinations are working in complete harmony, and no independent manufacturer can exist against their will.

In that great industrial region many large iron companies had come into possession of coal mines. In order to induce these to put their mines into the Syndicate, they were given the right to produce, over and above their allotments, all the coal that they might need for their own furnaces. A new impetus was thus given to the process of consolidation. Strong coal companies hastened to absorb iron establishments, in order to earn larger profits by consuming their own coal in indefinite quantities. Furthermore, as the allotments were fixed absolutely for a long period, the strongest companies proceeded to buy weaker, less economically worked collieries, in order to shut them down and produce their allotments elsewhere at lower cost. This movement assumed large proportions. Miners by the thousand had to betake themselves to other parts of the country, and entire communities were threatened with depopulation. Industrial towns held indignation meetings, to protest, and to demand the nationalization of the mines; and excited operatives are still holding conferences to discuss a general strike. The Government has sent a commission to inquire into the movement; and the Minister of Commerce has urged the coal magnates to proceed as mildly as possible.

This powerful concentric movement of industries has taken a strong hold upon the thoughts of people and Government alike. The public is deeply concerned at the growth of private monopolies, and many persons who had hitherto favored letting economic development take its own course now call for drastic measures of prevention and repression. Country squires of the most conservative type advocate the nationalization of all coal deposits; and it is already asserted that a majority of the Prussian Diet would vote for such a measure. This convergence of the views of extreme Conservatism and radical Socialism is certainly one of the oddest results of the movement under discussion, — and one of the most instructive. The natural trend of events is unquestionably in the direction of some form of socialism. The Social Democracy clearly perceives this, and so hails every industrial consolidation as but another milestone on the way to state collectivism.

The foes of Socialism, too, see the line of development with equal clearness. Last year the German Government printed the proceedings of a commission that had been appointed to investigate industrial consolidations. At one of its sittings — held prior to the events related in the foregoing paragraphs — Professor Adolf Wagner of Berlin University, for many years one of the leaders of that school of German economists which demands the extension of state authority at the expense of the individual, said: “In such a tendency as is at work in syndicates and trusts, are we not preparing the way for what the Socialists themselves represent as the final goal of development ? When it comes to pass that all industries are amalgamated into trusts, kartells, and gigantic establishments, as in America, then the ultimate question arises of itself, whether everything ought not to be taken over by the State. Then you have the Social Democratic State, the productive system of Socialism.” The professor’s attitude of mind is typical. Most Germans who think upon these problems at all now betray similar incertitude as to the groundwork of their economic creed, —

The Government itself affords a most luminous illustration of what has just been said. It is fully convinced of the economic soundness — nay, the economic necessity — of industrial consolidations. The ministers have reiterated in various legislative debates the arguments for the syndicates, laying special emphasis upon their effectiveness as weapons of economic warfare with foreign countries. American competition in the world’s markets, they asserted, could only be met by such organizations on a large scale. Hence the syndicates have been most tenderly treated by the State. Count Posadowsky, the economic mouthpiece of the Imperial Government, has recently given deep offense to the country squires by openly defending great capital combinations against their attacks; and he once spoke of the investigating commission on syndicates as designed rather in the interest of the syndicates themselves than in that of the State. The Prussian Minister of Commerce recently expressed the conviction that the system of free competition was no longer available under modern industrial conditions. The Ministry shows its faith by its works, too: the Prussian Fiscal Bureau, as owner of several of the best potash mines of the country, boldly took the initiative in reviving the Potash Syndicate last summer, and it assisted in suppressing several works through a manipulation of prices, — all quite after the usual trust tactics. In the Saar region, too, the state coal mines take the lead in practices that consumers regard as very oppressive.

Yet the Government is convinced that great combinations of capital threaten grave dangers to the public welfare, and feels that it must do something, if not to prevent harmful results, at least to watch developments from its vantage-ground, and discover, if may be, where the danger line is crossed. When the Ministers of Finance and Commerce observed the new pace set last summer in the fusion of coal and iron companies, they at once determined to buy some great coal company, in order to secure a seat in the Syndicate, where they might watch tendencies and influence prices. They accordingly commissioned a bank quietly to buy the majority of the stock of the Hibernia Coal Company; and the Berlin Bourse, usually so quiet, experienced a new thing in its history, — a regular American “fight to secure control.” Who the mysterious “plunger ” was that was “bulling” Hibernia stock so recklessly, only became apparent some weeks later, when the Government found it expedient to throw off its disguise and make a public offer for the remainder of the stock. But the passions of the leading stockholders had been too much inflamed by the Government’s secretive methods; and it failed to secure the coveted prize. The Minister of Commerce had later to suffer the indignity of going to the Diet for an appropriation to pay for the minority stock, and of hearing himself berated there by the friends of the Syndicate as an impertinent poacher upon its preserves.

A startling turn has recently been given to this controversy. The Coal Syndicate, which had early mobilized its forces to defeat the Government’s plan, has now joined hands with several of the largest banks of Berlin, to organize a trust, or holding company, to control all the Hibernia stock not yet secured by the Government, and to keep it in a fixed, inattackable form. It is a German adaptation of our famous Northern Securities Company, and so illustrates anew how American example can “corrupt the world,” On German soil, however, the very organization of this company was — in view of the hostility to great capital prevailing here — a display of astonishing audacity. The Minister of Commerce felt this when he warned the Hibernia capitalists against what he called their “Defiance Trust,” and characterized their action as “ a strong provocation to the great majority of this House.”

What shall be the remedy for these great combinations of capital, or, indeed, whether any remedy at all is needed, are questions that have not been remotely answered in Germany. Almost everybody wants Government action of some kind, — except the Socialists, who wish to accelerate, rather than retard, the concentric movement of capital. It is a curious fact that the Socialists, the party of discontent par excellence, are the only political group that is wholly satisfied with the movement; they feel that they can logically classify it in the historical development of their system. The radical Liberals offer free trade as a remedy, particularly where the syndicates sell their products more cheaply abroad than at home; but the trouble is that the people cannot be persuaded to take this course, being too fully committed to the policy of protection. The Congress of German Jurists discussed the subject again in September, and voted against Government interference in general; but it adopted by an overwhelming majority a declaration that interference would be justifiable in cases of excessive price advances. The Government, too, while trying to discover its ideal of syndicates “inwardly so constructed that they shall act reasonably and rightly,” feels that some legislation may become necessary. It realizes, however, the extreme difficulty of legislating wisely in such a complicated matter, and is evidently afraid that any bill it might propose would be given a more radical character in the Reichstag than it could accept. Under this view the ministers take frequent occasion to warn the magnates of the trusts not to provoke legislative action.

A curious movement has been inaugurated to counteract the effects of large capital combinations, — a movement to “rescue the middle class.” A national organization with this end in view was recently formed by the Agrarian and Anti-Semitic element. Their immediate plan is to secure harsh laws against department stores, which one of their number has called the “crying evil of the time,” in the interest of the small shopkeepers. They even want to close up the large coöperative stores of army and navy officers and Government officials. These so-called “ middle - class rescuers” are strong in the Diet. The rigorous law against department stores having failed to check these, the anti-capitalistic majority now proposes to sharpen its provisions, reducing the limit at which the tax begins to an annual turnover of $50,000, instead of $100,000. At this point, however, the Government raises a warning voice and defends the great bazaars as natural products of modern conditions. Moreover, this tendency to call for state action whenever something seems to be out of joint in the affairs of the people, is evidently going too far for the Government; but, as the Minister of Commerce recently pointed out, “this tendency is really not with the Government, but with the whole population. Whenever an abuse is discovered anywhere to-day, the State is at once called to: ‘Help us out! Your strong arm must bring a remedy! ’ Forty years ago nobody would have said this; people would not have called on the State for help. To-day it is done everywhere.”

From the discussion of these matters it is but a step to Socialism. The Social Democratic party suffered the loss of three of its eighty-one seats in the Reichstag last year, and in several other by-elections its vote was greatly reduced. The backset was attributed to internal dissension in the party, growing out of the famous Dresden Convention of 1903, and to the autocratic methods of the National Committee in interfering with the nomination of candidates. The newspaper controversies within the party, too, have been frequent and hot. Some followers have doubtless become disgusted at the vitriolic amenities exchanged so freely by Socialist writers; and all this has tended, for the moment, to diminish the voting strength of the party. Conservative editors take much comfort in these developments, and are trying to hope that Socialism has now reached its culminating point. More unbiased judges, however, are sure that the phenomenon is only an eddy in the current, and that we have not yet reached the full breadth of the stream.

The prodigious amount of attention given to the discussion of Socialism in the Reichstag is a sure index of the intense preoccupation of the Government and the so-called “law and order parties” with that movement. Far more time is given to speeches about the doings of the Social Democratic party than to any other subject; and several of its leaders, like Bebel and von Vollmar, are sure of the breathless attention of the House and the Ministers, as the speakers of no other party are. “ Our entire public life revolves about this party,” said a National Liberal leader recently, in complaining that the Ministers gave such elaborate replies to the attacks of the Socialists, while ignoring criticism from other sides. This is perhaps but a natural result from the fact that the Socialists are becoming more and more the only effective opposition party. They are the only party that fights the Government as if it “meant business.” The attack is often exaggerated or wide of the mark, indeed, but the Socialist speakers do lay bare the weak places in the Government’s policy, and abuses in administration, with a fullness and vigor that win admiration far beyond the limits of that party. As one travels about Germany, one is surprised to find how frequently one meets men of influence, not Socialists, who praise the service that this party is doing for the country. In their view it is a cleansing tempest that purifies the political atmosphere. But the Socialists also receive recognition from higher quarters. The Minister of the Interior of the Grand Duchy of Baden recently said: “The Social Democracy is in large part a movement that has proceeded from justifiable and sound motives; ” and Count von Posadowsky has expressed himself similarly in the Reichstag.

The most disappointing development of the year in the Social Democratic party — for outsiders who had hoped to see the Revisionists get the upper hand — was the further strengthening of the radical main body; while the prospects of revisionism certainly look less bright than for several years. The old school of Socialists are taking active measures against the Revisionists. The leader of the latter, Eduard Bernstein, established last year a weekly newspaper at Berlin in which to argue his case, but the local lights of the party pronounced a boycott upon it before it was born, and it lived only thirty weeks. At the International Socialist Congress at Amsterdam, too, Bebel won, with his Dresden resolutions, emphasizing the class-struggle character of the socialistic movement, a sweeping victory over Jaures and the opportunists of other countries. The victory,however, will remain without practical effect upon the further development of Socialism in Europe; since men of the Jaures type will continue to make alliances with other parties; and thus, although weaker relatively than the German Social Democracy, they will continue to achieve better practical results in alleviating conditions for the working classes than the “Three-million party” of Germany.

Inside the latter, too, the conviction is undoubtedly gaining momentum that a policy of mere negation, of unconditional opposition to Government measures, is unwise. At the annual convention of the party at Bremen the representatives of the labor-unions advocated coöperation with the Government and other parties in carrying forward the policy of social reform. The significance of this is apparent, since these unions number over a million members and constitute the best element of the party. As for the rest, the Bremen Convention was tame, in contrast with that of Dresden. A noteworthy step was a vote of sharp censure upon one of the party’s delegation in the Reichstag for espousing a mild form of protection. The vote gave much comfort to the foes of Socialism, who saw in it merely another expression of Socialist intolerance; but it was certainly in harmony with the party’s consistent free-trade history.

The danger of the Socialist movement, to the Stale continues to haunt many minds; and the abolition of universal suffrage as an extreme remedy is frankly proposed in some quarters. The high Conservative noblemen of the Prussian House of Lords openly advocated that course; and Chancellor von Bülow offered only a mild objection, which seemed equivalent to saying, not yet. A still more radical proposition has been put forward by a professor of constitutional law at Heidelberg University. Anticipating the time when the Socialists shall have a majority in the Reichstag, he asserts the right of the German sovereigns to break up the Empire whenever the majority there becomes too difficult to handle; and he was able to defend this view by quoting a petulant utterance of Bismarck’s, that the German princes could easily take the notion of treating the entire Imperial constitution as a “bonmot of yesterday.” A Socialist speaker in the Reichstag, in answer to such suggestions of a coup-d’état, boldly announced that “ our majority will prove man enough to quell your minority.” This playing with future fire, however, is obviously not to the liking of the thoughtful Socialist leaders, who anticipate with some dread the time when the majority of the nation shall stand with them, and they must inaugurate an open conflict between two eras.

The Polish question entered upon a new phase in 1904, through the passage of the so-called “Settlement Law.” Some years ago the Polish party organized a land-bank, the Ziemski, for the purpose of counteracting the Government’s plan of buying up large estates in the provinces of Posen and West Prussia, dividing them up, and settling German peasant farmers upon them. This Ziemski, together with a number of similar concerns, adopted precisely the same plan for settling Polish peasants; and their success was so great that the two provinces have been growing more Polish than before the Government Settlement Commission began to Germanize them. Indeed, the work of the Commission has hitherto yielded most unsatisfactory results. A public document shows that it had spent, from its organization in 1886 to the end of 1903, nearly $42,000,000, of which above $25,000,000 was paid for lands already in German hands. When the Commission commenced its labors it paid an average of $34 per acre for land; in 1902 the price had advanced to $87; and in 1903 it reached $111. The Poles resisted more and more the attempt to buy their lands for the extension of German influence. Hence less than eight per cent of the Commission’s purchases in 1903 were from Polish owners. In other words, the Commission has been compelled to buy German lands at fancy prices, in order to prevent their falling again into Polish hands. The Polish settlement agencies have beaten the Commission at its own game; and the Prussian Minister of Agriculture admitted to the Diet, that from 1896 to the end of 1903 above 106,000 acres of German lands in the two provinces had been transferred to Polish ownership.

Confronted by such conditions, the Prussian Government resorted to a Draconian remedy. It brought forward a bill forbidding private organizations to acquire and divide lands without the permission of the provincial governor, which must be based upon a certificate from the Settlement Commission to the effect that the agency in question is acting in harmony with German national aims. This will effectively throttle all Polish settlement work. The opposition in the Diet resisted the Government with uncommon vigor, pointing out that the measure was the rankest kind of class legislation, besides being unconstitutional, since the Constitution asserts the equality of all Prussians before the laws. The argument from expediency, however, prevailed with the majority; and the questionable bill became law.

The position of the Clerical party in the Empire, and its relations with the Government, came up for an unusual amount of discussion last year, owing to the passage of a bill repealing a section of the Jesuit law. This gave the Government the power to expel foreign Jesuits and to restrict German ones to a limited territory. The repeal, however, is without practical effect, since the paragraph in question has not been enforced for many years; but it caused significant discontent in a large part of the Protestant population, which is growing restive under the extension of Clerical influence with the Government.

Passions were still more deeply stirred by a resolution passed by the Diet, favoring a law to make all elementary schools either Protestant or Catholic, each having exclusively teachers and pupils of the same confession, and boards of school inspectors having representatives of church interests. An intensely sharp agitation followed for months in educational and political circles. The annual gatherings of national teachers’ organizations rejected the proposed law with decisive emphasis, as certain to introduce confessionalism into the schools, and to give the clergy of both churches too much influence over them. The National Liberal party, the originator of the objectionable resolution, saw a great movement of protest break out within its ranks; and the younger element of the party, the so-called “Young Liberals,” held a convention and strongly declared against the new policy of the leaders.

In a higher sphere of educational life, too, the year was marked by ferment and action. Theological teaching has for some years been the centre around which continued controversy, partly religious, partly political, has revolved. The orthodox wing of the state church has grown bolder in its demand that theological teaching at the universities be brought into harmony with its views, and that the unrestrained freedom of investigation and instruction hitherto enjoyed by the professors of theology be abolished. Alarmed at the growing urgency of that demand, and the increasing influence of the orthodox party upon the policy of the Government, the friends of free investigation organized in October a national society to resist reactionary encroachments upon the liberal traditions of the theological faculties. The organizers of the movement appre hend that the retrograde tendency will still further weaken the hold of the Evangelical church upon the intellectual life of the country. Doubtless the next few years will witness a sharper alignment of forces opposing and defending the intellectual liberty of the theological faculties.